


Amelie tries to be a friend and fails pretty bad

by choppedmint (forevermint)



Series: The Road Not Taken [25]
Category: The Morganville Vampires - Rachel Caine
Genre: Friends fighting, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Very Heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forevermint/pseuds/choppedmint
Summary: Written to the prompt: Aggressive
Relationships: Theo Goldman & Amelie
Series: The Road Not Taken [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558276





	Amelie tries to be a friend and fails pretty bad

The car pulled up in front of the house, tires expertly missing the curb. It was black and looked like it had just pulled out of a spy movie or that it had perhaps once belonged to the CIA. The thing which stuck out about it was that it had tinted windows so blacked out you couldn’t see in. It stalled in front of the house, motor making a purring sound. Twilight sucked at the vision of any passerby - if there happened to be any. The house was dark, curtains drawn. Dead.  
Within the car, in the driver’s seat, was a man sat with pale skin, hands still on the steering wheel. He looked forward, apparently able to see out at the world. The inside of the vehicle was darker than the outside, deep shadows cast onto the faces of those in the back seat. There was a woman, her blond hair down, dressed all in white with skin pale to match. She sat beside a man, hair only just going a little gray but still holding on to the ginger-brown tones. She didn’t look at him. His shoulder were hunched, fingers pressed together and face buried in his grasp. There was no scent of blood in the air so she knew he hadn’t been crying. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.  
Five minutes, maybe ten, and the car idled and she said nothing. It was only after the sun had completely dipped behind the horizon that she pushed the door open. The man remained in the car for now, but she walked around the car and opened his door as well. “Theo,” she said, voice unusually kind. The man took an age to uncurl from his position and slither out of the leather passenger seat with legs that hardly seemed to be able to support him. He pressed a hand on the top of the car as soon as he was outside. The woman gently closed the door, whisper soft. She made no further move to try and express sympathy for what the man was going through. It wasn’t in her nature to reassure or offer condolences. Theo didn’t really blame her. It probably wasn’t something she was capable of anymore. She’d seen too much death.   
He almost dug his fingers into the metal of the roof as he looked at his house. What was he going to say?  
“The truth,” said the woman. It was like she could read his mind even though he knew that wasn’t directly within her abilities.  
It was a truth they had already known. How many days had it been? Two? Theo couldn’t properly think over the length of time. Marcellus had disappeared and they had *looked<*. Oh God they had looked.   
His fingers really were digging into the roof now. Why? They had thought …  
They had checked so many places that first day. It had taken today before they had understood where it seemed most likely to find him.  
The woman’s hand was also resting on the hood of the car, though she was several inches shorter than Theo and the effect was off. “Your son had a good heart.”  
Theo’s eyes flashed, pain and other emotions flying through his crimson eyes. He didn’t ask the question of why she said that. He knew Marcellus did have - had. But Amelie hadn’t known him. Not personally.  
“Fallon meant nothing to your son,” said Amelie. She was looking at the house, not at Theo. “Apart from the fact he’d brought the ‘Cure’ to Morganville.” Anger flashed white hot through Theo, almost taking control of his voice. It had been no Cure! Fallon and anything from him would always be a curse. If Amelie had seen the flash of fury she ignored it. “The mall was where you were kept when he took over.” Theo thought he knew where she was going but he desperately wanted her to stop. “Enough of a connection to him that he knew you’d look, but enough time to have you understand what had happened.”   
It didn’t add a straw to break Theo but it was a close thing. His form blurred and he slammed Amelie into the car until the door bent under the force. He sense other vampires suddenly at his back, as if they’d been called from thin air. But at some unseen command they evaperated. Amelie just looked at Theo around his arm, which was pressed into her chest. “Don’t you dare,” hiss Theo. “Don’t you dare try to read things into my son’s suicide. This is not some bigger plan which you can unpick like a mind-game. *Not my son*.” The door creaked under the force and Theo leaned in further, red eyes meeting Amelie’s blue. “Make your point without your riddle, Amelie. Make it and be done.”  
The female vampire looked up into her friend’s face, perfectly calm even as her back was being bruised and cut by her own vehicle. She spoke plainly, without seeming to be inhibited by the arm across her. “Your son loved you and your family, Theo. The last thing he would have wanted was for you to be in pain. His pain was just greater.”  
Theo’s arm seemed to weaken by degrees until Amelie could stand on her own feet. She made no attempt to pick glass out of her hair or her skin. It bled freely until the scratches closed.  
“How am I going to …” started Theo, looking over his fingers as if they weren’t his own. Almost for five hundred years his family had been united and whole. Then his daughter had been killed. But that had been bravely, that had been protecting her family and people around them. No more than a handful of years ago Jochen had died the same way. Theo had grieved, of course he had. But this seemed so much worse. Jochen, his daughter … the family had pulled together and things had slowly gone back to normal. It had just been the family, the one who had been together for the same span of time. Patience had been the worst off. Losing two children. And now she’d lost a third. And Julius and Penny, Marcel’s husband and daughter … this wasn’t a hurt to be healed in a hundred years. They didn’t have that.  
He pressed his hands into the car again, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Amelie blinked several times, for once looking a bit helpless. She was still standing with her back pressed into the car and Theo was still in front of her. She was about to untangle herself from the metal when Theo seemed to focus again. His eyes still hadn’t shed any tears, maybe he was just unable to, and their red gaze fixed her in place as she waited for him to speak.  
“Never again,” he spat. “Make sure this never happens again. Not to my family. Not to anyone else’s. If that means taking away this ‘Cure’ then I will go to heaven and hell to do it. Understand, Amelie?”  
The vampire, after a long second, gave one nod. Theo backed away, almost stumbling. It was painful to watch.  
“Theo,” said Amelie. And he looked at her, waiting to see if she’d say anything worthwhile. “I’m sorry.”  
The male vampire turned without any response, leaving her to her car and attendants. Her words weren’t enough.

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGIN "Aggressive: Amelie tries to be a friend and fails pretty bad": It was a story that was buzzing around in my head for a very long time. But one which I shied away from because it once again danced around a very serious theme. Still, I wrote and included it because it was an integral part of the overall story and not something that I felt I could avoid. I feel it's about time I addressed the fact that Marcel's death was not made like this for 'fun'. Nor was it for any sort of plot point or attention getter. The exact origin of Marcel was based on the fact that the canon 'cure' for being a vampire within the Morganville series was a serious one, with serious consequences. And I try not to take that lightly or go in without a thought for what a story like this means. While it is a serious subject it is also one that exists within real life, without the addition of a fantasy element. So, in a very real way, I want to be accurate and understanding. His death matters. It has consequences. It isn't there just to be there; it's there because ignoring it wasn't something I could do. Despite being a fictional character, Marcel is important. So because of that I felt I also needed to show how Theo, different from Julius on many fronts, took this. Not only that, but I tried to look through unfeeling Amelie's eyes to see how she would be affected as well and what her shortcoming to Theo's emotions would be. Less related to the story, I wanted to show Theo was strong in his own way and how self-controlled Amelie was - allowing Theo to take out things on her since it was easier than addressing the emotions head on.


End file.
